Shutdown has immediate effects in Stark

Several Stark County residents reported they were already suffering inconveniences that could affect their credit and their living situations on the first day of the partial federal government shutdown.

The first partial federal shutdown since 1996 was only hours old Tuesday, and it was already presenting major inconveniences for some Stark County residents.

Visitors to the Ralph Regula Federal Building on McKinley Avenue SW found the Internal Revenue Service office closed and many of its approximately 30 employees furloughed after deep partisan disagreements in Congress over the Affordable Care Act derailed the passage of a bill to fund much of the federal government.

Robert Claiborne of Canton arrived around noon to submit his income tax payment. He was surprised to find the door to the IRS office locked. Claiborne said he usually paid in person because if he mailed the payment, it often took a long time before it was credited to his account.

But he took it in stride.

“There’s issues with everything. The government. Your personal life. Nothing’s perfect,” Claiborne said as he left.

In the Social Security Administration office downstairs, a security guard was telling people that the office was open. But due to the furlough of some employees, it would not process requests for new or replacement Social Security cards and Medicare cards or requests for letters verifying Social Security benefit income.

Ward Benjamin, who said he served in the Army for 20 years, drove from Alliance and was upset to learn he could not get a letter confirming his Social Security income. His landlord, the Stark Metropolitan Housing Authority, requires him to submit the letter every year to prevent his rent from rising.

“I think it sucks,” he said. “(Thirty dollars) that’s a lot to me. I’m poor. I’m retired. They raise (the rent), I don’t get my medicine. I can’t get my food. ... they’ve got to come to an agreement. ... all the time they had, they couldn’t do a better job than they did?”

SMHA Executive Director Herman Hill said his agency won’t require tenants to provide letters confirming Social Security income to prevent a rent hike until the shutdown is over.

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Betsy Woods, 27, of Canton, was infuriated because she needed a Social Security benefit income letter so she can rent a house.

“Because of this stupid shutdown it’s causing me to be on the streets until this stupid government opens up,” she said.

Jennifer Kennedy, 37, of Massillon was disappointed to find out that she couldn’t get a replacement Social Security card so she can file for bankruptcy.

“Everybody (in Congress) needs to be replaced,” she said. “All of them there, from the president.”

Raina Becker, 25, of Canton, was trying to find out why her Social Security disability payment was less than she anticipated when her case worker told her “right now, we’re not being paid." She said about Congress “there’s no time to disagree. Somebody has to make a decision because there’s sick people.”

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Michael T. Arnold, 61, of Plain Township, who was at the Ralph Regula building to provide paperwork to dispute Social Security’s denial of his disability claim, said about the Social Security workers who’ve helped him, “I hope they’ll be paid because they have bills to pay like we all do.”

FIRST LADIES LIBRARY CLOSED

A few blocks away, a sign announced that the First Ladies National Historic Site on Market Avenue S, which is operated by the National Park Service and the National First Ladies’ Library, is closed. During a threat of a shutdown in the spring of 2011, the NPS said the tourist attraction would stay open because a non-profit group paid the site’s employees. But in September 2011, the library donated its Education and Research Center to NPS.

The library’s president, Mary Regula, said since 2011, the salaries of her staff have been covered in part by federal dollars. She said an NPS official visited the site a few weeks ago to go over the shutdown procedures should it be necessary.

At the McKinley Presidential Library and Museum, the museum’s director Joyce Yut said her facility and its McKinley National Memorial is operated with private dollars and is not affected by the shutdown.

Other closed federal offices included the U.S. Department of Agriculture office in Massillon, which includes the Farm Service Agency, which helps farmers get federal aid, and the offices of Rural Development and the National Resources Conservation Service.

But other federal offices remained open because they were staffed with people deemed “essential” to protecting life or property who won’t be paid during the shutdown or the agency is operating with approved funding. That included the U.S. Bankruptcy Court at the Ralph Regula Building as the federal courts can operate for at least 10 business days with funds from fees; the U.S. Postal Service; military recruiting offices in Jackson Township and Massillon; the FBI office in Jackson Township; Transportation Security Administration officers and federal air traffic controllers at Akron-Canton Airport; and the Veterans Affairs Outpatient Clinic in Canton.

Back at the Ralph Regula building, Joyce Garner, 53, of Canton, said she was trying to submit paperwork before the shutdown might delay a Social Security payment of two years of benefits owed to her so she can pay her medical debt.

“I think it’s ridiculous. They’re acting like children, and they need to grow up, and start getting along,” said Garner. “If Obamacare is the issue that’s holding Republicans back, and it’s going through anyway, then why are these Republicans the ones holding it (funding) back? It doesn’t make any sense to me.”